Vermeer - The Glass of Wine

Vermeer painted The Glass of Wine around 1660, in the years he was working out how light behaves in a room. A woman finishes a glass; a man in a cloak waits beside her with his hand on a jug, and the whole exchange hangs on what happens next. The stained-glass window carries a figure of Temperance holding a bridle — Vermeer put the moral in the glass and then let the light do the arguing.